Yes, if you forgive others their failings, your heavenly Father will forgive you yours; but if you do not forgive others, your Father will not forgive your failings either.
Mt.6:15
Jesus has just given The Lord's Prayer as an example of how to pray. He underscores the verse on forgiveness by emphasising the result that follows when I forgive and when I don't.
The problem I have with forgiveness is that appears to let perpetrators of wrong get away with it. Forgiveness taken out of context can look this way. However, when I read verses in scripture on what God has to say about the wicked, I am reminded no one gets away with it. As we read in today's Psalm;
The Lord turns his face against the wicked
to destroy their remembrance from the earth.
The Lord turns his eyes to the just
and his ears to their appeal.
So what am I left with? Firstly, leave judgment up to God and work on being be the perpetrator of outrageous grace. Secondly, make sure I'm not in the camp that has its remembrance destroyed from the earth.
Jesus, you pleaded for forgiveness for those who were nailing you to the cross. Help me be a pleader for mercy rather than a plotter for revenge.
Saint Philip Neri, please pray for me.
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